Blinded (19 page)

The bridge over the river where Sterling Storey disappeared wasn’t much to look at.

I’d been working under the assumption that it was a major highway bridge on the stretch of Highway 19 that connects Thomasville and Albany, but it wasn’t. For some reason, when Sterling had cut off the main road out of Tallahassee, which was Highway 319, he’d ended up on a smaller road, a two-laner that I guessed was a county road, marked Georgia 3, heading northwest just about parallel to Highway 19. The bridge on the smaller road was a concrete structure that had been doing its job for a lot of years, almost too many. The local cops figured Sterling had gotten lost in the storm and had taken the wrong turn out of Thomasville and ended up on the county road instead of 19.

It was a reasonable assumption, but assumptions trouble me.

The details of the accident weren’t what I expected. The minivan that had gone off the highway and that had been in danger of sliding into the swollen river was traveling southeast, not northwest, before it went off the road. I couldn’t figure out how Sterling had even seen it down there. It was on the opposite side of the road, on the opposite side of the bridge.

That wasn’t all that I couldn’t figure. After living in the high desert for as long as I had, it was a constant revelation to me how lush everything was in southern Georgia, even the week before Thanksgiving. With the accident having taken place at nearly eight o’clock at night, with all the woods and vegetation camouflaging everything, and with torrential rains obscuring anything that wasn’t camouflaged, I didn’t know how Sterling could have seen a damn thing out the windshield of his damn rented Camry.

Standing near the top of the bridge abutment, I stared at the placid river below my feet. The water in the Ochlockonee was more yellow than gray, and I suspected that with global warming and all, there were glaciers that moved faster than that river was flowing at that moment. It took every bit of my imagination to conjure up a picture of the biblical flood that had recently coursed down that channel.

Before I left the riverbank, I reread the police report that my partner Lucy had smuggled to me. The report was okay. Better than many I’d read. Written clearly, decent chronology, good descriptions. In most circumstances it would have sufficed. These weren’t most circumstances, though, and standing on the bridge, I realized what wasn’t spelled out in the report.

Who had arrived at the scene first? Was it the Baptist preacher, the twin sisters, or Sterling Storey?

According to the police report, the preacher who had witnessed Sterling’s disappearance into the river was Reverend Nathaniel Prior, who served the faithful at a church in Meigs, a little town a short stretch northeast on Georgia 3 from the accident scene.

That’s where I would start.

The drive from the river to Meigs passed through thick woods that alternated with fields harvested clear-I was guessing-of cotton. I didn’t see much else that would support the local economy. I assumed I was in a poor county.

I drove up to a recently whitewashed church and asked a young man who was out in front raking leaves on the ragged lawn if he knew where I could find Nathaniel Prior.

“You’ve already found him. I’m Nathaniel Prior,” he told me. “I’m pleased to meet you.”

Nathaniel Prior was no more than twenty-five years old. He was smaller than me by a few inches but matched my weight pound for pound and then raised me a few for good measure. He had a voice that resonated like a diesel in a tunnel. The pile of leaves at his feet covered him up to midcalf.

He had big ears.

He tugged off a canvas glove, and we shook hands. I said, “Sam Purdy. Shall I call you Reverend?”

“That’s fine, or Nate’s fine, too. There are moments when I’m convinced I’m called worse things behind my back, but you’ve barely met me, so what reason would you have to insult me? What can I do for you this fine day?”

It was a fine day. The afternoon sun was shining, and the moisture in the southern air had already softened up my cuticles and the tender skin inside my nose. Those are the first parts that turn to papyrus after even a few days in the Colorado high desert.

“Do you have a minute to answer some questions about last Saturday? The accident at the bridge?”

Prior looked over my shoulder at the Cherokee. He said, “Mr. Purdy? Do I have that right? Why don’t we sit a spell and get a glass of tea? I have a feeling you’ve come a long way to ask me these questions, and these leaves are probably more than content to wait to be imprisoned in Hefty bags.”

“Sam,” I said. “Some tea sounds great.” I sat on the wooden porch of the church while the reverend retrieved the tea from inside. At least three people walking down the quiet lane waved hello to me while he was gone. I waved back to every one of them.

The tea was sweet, flavored with mint, and was delivered in painted glasses fat enough to hold a Big Gulp with room to spare.

“Thanks,” I said after a long draw.

“Colorado, huh? You ski?”

“Snowboard, actually, if you can believe it. I have a kid I try to chase around as much as I can. The snowboarding is his idea. He thinks skis are dorky. For his benefit, I try not to be any dorkier than comes naturally.”

“Copper? Winter Park?”

I didn’t expect somebody in Meigs, Georgia, to be asking me about ski resorts on Colorado’s Front Range. “Winter Park and Breck, mostly. You know-”

“I did a semester in Denver. At the Denver Seminary. Went up skiing whenever I could afford it, which wasn’t very often. A bunch of us got those cheap Buddy Passes at Copper. That was a good winter.”

I almost said,
“No shit.”
But I didn’t; I was on God’s front lawn. “How long you been in Meigs?”

“A couple of years. I’m loving it. I have a wonderful congregation. My family’s in Atlanta, close by. I’m doing what I’ve always wanted to do. Life is as sweet as this tea.” He placed his glass between his feet. “So what caused you to drive all this way to ask me what happened at the bridge?”

“The man who disappeared? I’m assisting his wife. I told her I’d try to figure out exactly what happened to him.”

“You an investigator of some kind?”

I considered lying to him but didn’t want to lie to a preacher. I don’t know why, exactly; in most circumstances I’d be happy to lie to the pope to advance an investigation. “Yeah, I am. I’m actually a police detective in Boulder. But I had a heart attack a while back and I’m on medical leave. So technically, at the moment, I’m nobody. Just somebody trying to help a friend.”

This was the moment in conversations with strangers-the moment they learned I was a cop from Boulder-when they asked the did-you-work-on-the-JonBenet-case? question. I steeled myself for it.

“You don’t look like Boulder.”

I smiled at him, grateful that we’d skipped right past the Ramseys. I replied, “You don’t look like Meigs.”

“Touché,” he said. “Fire away. What can I tell you?”

I took a battered notepad out of my pocket, flipped it to the next empty page, and clicked open my pen. “When did you arrive at the accident?”

“I was the last car to stop before Mr. Storey disappeared in the water. When I arrived, he was already there, the two sisters from Ochlockonee were already there, and of course, Mrs. Turnbull’s minivan was already down the bank.”

“Pretty dark that night?”

“As Satan’s heart.”

“Raining?”

“Buckets.”

“And you saw Mr. Storey go into the river? Personally?”

“I’d parked my car so my headlights were pointing toward Mrs. Turnbull’s minivan, so even with the rain there was some light down there. Though most of the beam went above her car. She was hung up on a tree branch on a steep section of the bank. It was leaning-at least thirty or forty degrees would be my guess-”

“Mine, too. I saw the river this morning. That bank is like a slide. The other side, where the tree was, there was more vegetation over there.”

“Exactly. Well, Mr. Storey was already easing his way down toward Mrs. Turnbull when I first saw him. He was only a couple of yards away from the minivan when his feet went out from under him and he slid down the bank.”

“You saw that?”

“Sure. The whole thing happened in the blink of an eye. I didn’t see him go into the river. There was no light down that far.”

“But he slipped, and then he slid? That’s definite?”

“Absolutely.”

“He was on the mud side of the car, not the tree side?”

“Correct.”

“Did he call for help?”

“He did not. We-the Wolf sisters and me-guessed he was in the water before he knew what happened. He could’ve been downstream a hundred yards by the time he inhaled. Or tried to inhale. It’s awfully easy to hit your head in raging water like that.”

“You think he’s dead, Reverend?”

“In my heart? Yes, I do. I prayed for his soul that night before I left the riverbank. I felt death around me while I prayed.” He gritted his teeth as though a fleck of ice cube had come to rest right on top of a cavity. “You don’t, do you? Think he’s dead.”

“I’m not convinced, no.” What I didn’t add was that if Sterling Storey was dead, my whole trip to Georgia would dissolve into futility. I wasn’t in the South seeking justice; I was in the South seeking understanding. Sterling was going to be my unlikely professor.

I placed my empty tea glass two steps below my fat butt.

“Anything else?” I asked.

“I pray for Mr. Storey daily. Please tell his wife that. He sacrificed himself doing a Christian act of mercy.”

“I will pass that along. She’ll be comforted, I’m sure.”

“Thank you.”

I think he could tell I didn’t mean the part about Gibbs being comforted. I sat silently for most of a minute reviewing my questions and the reverend’s answers, looking for omissions. I couldn’t find any.

“If your church has a bathroom, I’d love to make a pit stop. Then I’ll be on my way. I’m grateful for your generous help. And for the fine tea. Meigs looks like a pleasant town; the people are friendly.”

“It is and they are. You’re going to go see the Wolf twins now, aren’t you?”

“Yes, I am. I like to hear everyone’s stories.”

“They won’t be home before supper. Go then. They’ll feed you well. Your patience will be rewarded.”

“I appreciate the tip.”

“You’re a Christian, Mr. Purdy?”

“I am.”

“Doing Christian deeds?”

“I try.”

“That’s all the Lord asks.”

“Is it?” Usually my faith in God was strong enough that such a question would never have occurred to me. But I was in Georgia on a wild-goose chase, and the question appeared on my lips and escaped before I could trap it.

The reverend looked at me in a kindly manner as though he could read the doubt in my eyes, as though he could tell that my faith was suffering.

I didn’t ask him why, if I was doing all the Lord asked, I’d just had a heart attack and how come my wife had left me and taken my son away from me a week before Thanksgiving. Why didn’t I ask the reverend? I supposed I didn’t want to hear him speak about faith and about God acting in mysterious ways. And I didn’t know whether or not I would have felt any better when we were done.

But my faith was weak right then, and I doubted it.

Reverend Prior must have sensed that misgivings were clouding my vision. He said, “Don’t make the mistake of measuring God’s love by the yardstick of your own life, Mr. Purdy.”

“What else do I have?” I asked.

He was busy pulling his canvas gloves back onto his hands. I wondered if he was planning to answer me.

“If you question God’s plan when life is spitting in your face, you must be willing to accept Him without question when He blesses you with a child who snowboards and doesn’t want you to be a dork.” Prior bent down and lifted the leaf rake. “Come by for services if you stay in the area. You’re welcome here, Mr. Purdy. There is abundant love here.”

“Thank you.”

“It’s nothing. The bathroom is right through there.”

Julie Franconia didn’t usually get to set these things up the way she wanted. Far from it. She didn’t have that much experience, but the few times she’d tried something like this, it had seemed that her fantasies usually got lost in the jungle of some man’s choosing. That’s the way it was the first time with him, too.

But this time his message said that she got to pick the time, the place, the setup. He just wanted to “control the mood.” The last time with him was the best ever. He’d taken her over the moon. The mood? He could have the mood.

That’s not all he could have. From the moment she’d spotted him at the RCA Dome, she’d been dying to make him hers. It had turned out better than she could have hoped.

She fit the headphones on her head and snapped the tape into the Walkman.

Beethoven.

An otherworldly voice-over said, “You have twenty minutes to get to the campsite. That’s all. Go, baby.”

Her heart was swollen. Anticipation. Pure anticipation.

Beneath her hiking clothes she was all silk. Everywhere.

Everywhere.

She knew the spot; she’d picked it carefully. Morgan Monroe State Park, north of Bloomington. A favorite trail. She wouldn’t have any trouble getting there in the dusk light. Getting the tent up? She could do it in three minutes.

The piano concerto ended, and some old rock ’n’ roll filled her ears. She thought maybe it was the Animals, but she wasn’t sure. That was before her time.

Before his, too.

“Okay, babe, get the tent up. Hurry. I can’t wait. I’m close by; can you feel me? Can you? I’m watching.”

She threaded the fiberglass poles. One, two, three. The tent was up.

“Into the woods, to the west, ten steps. Go on now.”

Her hiking boots sank half an inch into the marshy soil. She smiled as she saw the picnic basket.

“Now set everything up in the tent. Everything.”

She did.

Wine and chocolate. Two cans of whipped cream. A disposable camera. It didn’t take too long to set things up.

The music changed. The Doors.

Jim Morrison sang,
This is the end, my friend, the end.

And it was.

When the police found Julie’s body, they concluded that she was a hiker who had been pulled off the trail and shot by a madman.

Her body wasn’t in a tent.

And she wasn’t surrounded by a picnic of wine and sweets.